Gulls Beat Reign in Shootout Thriller
Dec 27, 2024By Samantha Mason/SanDiegoGulls.com
The San Diego Gulls saw victory tonight against the Ontario Reign with a 4-3 shootout marathon win.
The Gulls now have points in five straight home games (4-0-0-1).
The first goal of the night for the Gulls came from Ryan Carpenter, earning a short-handed goal. Carpenter made it a two-goal night, the second one being scored on a power play. This is his second multi-goal game of the season.
"That's just how we want to start to play as a team, more consistent," said Carpenter. "I thought we were when we were on that little winning stretch. It felt like we were hard to play against and defending hard and making it hard for teams to score for checking hard. It was nice to get back to that tonight."
Pavol Regenda also picked up a goal to open the second period, assisted by Yegor Sidorov and Roland McKeown.
San Diego and Ontario were tied up as regulation ended at 3-3. Five minutes of uninterrupted overtime play did not see a goal from either team.
Sidorov netted the game-winning goal for the Gulls after four rounds of the shootout. This marks the second victory resulting from a shootout this season, and the second shootout between the Gulls and the Reign.
Sidorov had an eventful December, where he has tallied 10 points in 10 games, and was also named the AHL’s Player of the Week for the week ending December 15. He currently co-leads Gulls skaters in points.
"There's certainly a lot that we're pleased with," said head coach Matt McIlvane. "It's coming out of a break. You're not expecting the world's most perfect game, but the detail in the game was certainly good enough to win defensively, and we'll just have to repeat that against another good opponent tomorrow."
The Gulls face off against the Bakersfield Condors for the third time this season tomorrow night at Pechanga Arena at 6:00 pm PST.